


When a Hero Begins

by Caped-Ace (PsychopompSentinel)



Category: Naruto
Genre: Basically Diet Angst, But the Focus is Naruto and Iruka as Family, Discord: Umino Hours, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, KakaIru if you Squint, Light Angst, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Relationships, Pre-Slash, introspective, very light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23047582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PsychopompSentinel/pseuds/Caped-Ace
Summary: After the fight with Pain ends in ressurection, Naruto returns to his people to find that he, for the first time, is being celebrated by the people he had sought to protect. Iruka watches his boy go from the village outcast to their savior, their hero, and though he is overjoyed that Naruto is finally acknowledged by everyone...he can't help but wonder whether or not he still fits into Naruto's world.But when a hero begins, it's not in the arms of strangers. It's in the arms of family.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Umino Iruka, Hatake Kakashi & Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto, Hatake Kakashi/Umino Iruka, Umino Iruka & Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 27
Kudos: 238
Collections: New Beginnings - Umino Hours





	When a Hero Begins

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beanisty](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=beanisty).



> This is my gift for Beanisty from the Umino Hours discord server, for the "New Beginnings — Umino Hours" event. I'm hella late, as life is a thing that has happened in full swing to me over the past month and a half, and I forgot how to do this writing thing for a hot minute, but it's finally done! Thank you Beanisty and MagnusTesla for your infinite patience, I hope to god it was worth it ಥ_ಥ~♥♥♥

Before him, there was a hero.

For years Iruka had seen that hero weave himself into form, thread by thread, clumsily and yet painstakingly sewn together with the strength of pure, chaotic willpower, and a heart too big for one shinobi to bear. Yet here Naruto was, the hero of Konoha—impossibly courageous and impossibly warm-hearted—and all at once the entire village saw him for what Iruka had known him to be since the day Naruto had defended him against Mizuki. Perhaps even before that, had he’d been brave enough to admit it.

Iruka stood far back within the crowd, watching from a distance as a whole slew of people launched Naruto up into the air, chanting his name. He watched the tears shake loose from Naruto’s eyes, catching the bright sunlight like little stars, pairing with the incredibly wide smile on his face to show just how touched and happy and _relieved_ he was. He could see Naruto wince and flinch in pain, with each enthusiastic toss upwards, and the total disregard for that pain in the tremulous, joyous laughter Iruka could hear even through all the celebration.

He could see it all, despite the thick tears falling down his own face. Over the years, Iruka had felt pride building within him for every iota of courage, of emotional empathy, and physical strength Naruto displayed, and now he felt that same pride, radiant and exuberant, outside himself and pulsating through every citizen of Konoha like a living, breathing _thing_. Iruka was seeing the village finally acknowledge Naruto bigger and louder than he himself ever could.

He was seeing Naruto’s dream come true in the most incredible way, and he was so full of that pride he was afraid he’d burst with it.

Wiping the tears from his flushed face and taking a deep, steadying breath, Iruka felt the current of emotions that had been all stirred up by everything finally settle enough for him to get a hold of himself. He patted his chest a bit, his heart still beating madly from the insanity of the day they’d all had, but he could already feel it too beginning to calm—seeing Naruto, and Kakashi-san for that matter, safe and sound did a lot to help. When he felt put-together enough to face Naruto without embarrassing himself, or the poor kid, Iruka started to walk forward with every intention of joining the crowd surrounding his boy. To join in on congratulating Naruto on achieving one of his biggest dreams of being acknowledged by the village. 

But Iruka’s approach was cut short when a few teenagers pushed past him, causing him to stumble to an abrupt stop. Blinking, he watched the teens join in on shouting praise at Naruto, one even stretching out her arms to help hoist Naruto into the air for the hundredth time. Something about it sat oddly at the back of his brain, but Iruka shook it off as best as he could and once again tried to walk forward.

And, once again, he was forced to a stop.

A large group of adults and children suddenly moved in front of him, completely blocking his path and, more distressingly, his view of Naruto and everyone at the forefront of the huge gathering of people. Iruka couldn’t even see Naruto when he was hurled upwards any longer, as quite a few of the people right in front of him were rather tall and broad-shouldered, or had children using them as ladders to see beyond the crowd themselves. That odd feeling from before came back, nameless and gnawing away at him until Iruka felt himself take a step backwards—a step away from Naruto—and suddenly he realized what he was feeling.

Iruka felt like he didn’t belong up there. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t think Naruto wouldn’t be happy to have him up there, celebrating his heroics along with everyone else, but rather that Iruka wasn’t _needed_. For years Iruka had been the only one to see Naruto for who he was, Konoha’s hero from the very beginning, and Iruka was the first to acknowledge that, aloud, in front of a person that embodied the vicious and cruel outlook that the rest of the village had had of Naruto since the moment he was born. But now, with the sounds of Naruto’s name filling the village in extolment rather than scorn at last, it wasn’t Iruka’s praise that Naruto needed, nor was it his pride...it was everyone else’s.

Naruto needed to know that what he’d worked so hard for, since the moment he knew it was what he wanted—the village’s acknowledgment—was finally his. And by god had he earned it.

So Iruka took another step back, and another, smiling a little to himself as he spun on his heels to begin to walk away with his hands tucked into his pockets. It was easy to reach the end of the massive crowd, as they were all moving forward, closer to their savior and the collective joy around him. Iruka found himself alone at the cusp of the hill that, with one more step, would begin to slope downward and lead him into the village, but rather than take that step he stood still, over-looking what Konoha had become. The huge crater carved out into the middle of their home, the numerous buildings with all sorts of damage, some fires still burning here and there...so much destruction, so much death, and yet here they all were, allowed to live on to see tomorrow all because of the efforts of one shinobi who didn’t know what it meant to give up.

Despite the fact that, from a distance, things looked more destroyed than they had after the Kyuubi attack 16 years ago, looking at everything didn’t carry that same weight of dread and grief. Even compared to the havoc that Orochimaru had wrought during the Chuunin exams, this seemed like _more_ and yet also _less_ at the same time.

They had so much to thank Naruto for, Iruka thought. 

He simply had to show his thanks another time.

Sighing gently, Iruka lifted his head to look at the sky, almost clear of the thick clouds that had plagued it earlier when the sky reflected the sense of doom the village below it had felt. His mind drifted, thinking on everything that had happened, especially when he had been looking into the face of what had almost been his end, until Hatake Kakashi had appeared out of nowhere and saved him. The fact that Kakashi-san had been the one to carry Naruto into the clearing where the village awaited them, that had almost brought Iruka to his knees in relief—he’d had to help the fellow shinobi that he’d been protecting at the time, and hadn’t known what had become of the Jounin. But he’d feared the worst, witnessing some of the strongest shinobi he knew fall to the dangers that surrounded them all, and hadn’t been able to entirely swallow the fear that his pathetic life had been saved in exchange for one of the village’s best soldiers.

If he’d lived and Kakashi-san had died, Iruka was quite certain he wouldn’t have been able to handle it. They’d become friends over the years, mostly due in part to Kakashi-san delivering Naruto’s letters to him during the boy’s travels with Jiraiya, and other than Mizuki he hadn’t really had any of those since his academy days. Or, well, when Iruka thought about it...he supposed Mizuki had never truly been a friend after all, so in actuality he hadn’t had _any_ friends before Kakashi-san.

Huh.

That was probably why the idea of losing that only friend terrified him so much.

And then there was Naruto.

Naruto was a friend, but in a different way. The kid was his brother, his son, _his only family_ as far as Iruka was concerned, so it was no wonder why he felt so strongly for him. Perhaps even to the point of being clingy, annoying.

Unwanted?

No, Naruto would never feel Iruka was unwanted. 

But unneeded?

Maybe.

Well, that was a terrible thought. It hadn’t taken long for the concept of “Naruto doesn’t need me right now” to turn into “Naruto doesn’t need me at all”. Iruka closed his eyes and couldn’t help but scoff at himself for how piteous he could be sometimes.

Sighing deeply, Iruka looked away from the sky and found himself staring at the ground, watching his toes curl and relax a few times against the worn soles of his sandals. With one more deep, soul-extracting sigh, Iruka lifted his head and hardened his resolve to stop the nonsense going through his brain, making up his mind to simply forget he thought any of it by going back to the village and getting started on reparations any way he possibly could.

Lifting his foot off the ground with every intention of starting his trek down the hill before him, Iruka jolted to stillness when something caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. Before he could even try to assess what was wrong a loud commotion came from behind him, and Iruka jerked his head in the direction of it, his eyes going wide.

“Iruka-sensei!” came a loud, familiar voice, followed by a cacophony of disruption as a blond head and orange-clothed body barreled through the crowd towards Iruka.

With his foot still hovering above the ground, Iruka, overall exhausted, couldn’t steady himself in time to properly catch Naruto, who haphazardly flew into Iruka’s outstretched arms. Hugging the boy close to keep him safe, Iruka and Naruto wound up tumbling down the hill until they laid at the bottom in a tangle of limbs, Naruto snugly held against Iruka’s body while Iruka had blades of grass sticking out of his ponytail and a few unfortunately making it into his mouth. 

Iruka coughed a bit, spitting out the grass, and then let out a breath he’d been holding as he realized both of them were relatively in one piece. It took some maneuvering, but he got them both sitting up, Iruka sitting cross-legged while Naruto, apparently completely unaware (or more likely uncaring) that he was far too big to be sitting in Iruka’s lap, carelessly had his legs framing Iruka’s hips and refused to leave the comfort of having his face buried in Iruka’s neck and his arms wrapped around Iruka’s shoulders. It was a very childish position for the teenager to be in, and Iruka should’ve probably commented on it, but he honestly didn’t care all that much.

His boy was there, in his arms, and any sort of decorum could fuck right off.

Gently placing a hand on the middle of Naruto’s back, Iruka’s other hand combed through the boy’s hair in a loving, calming gesture, and he smiled fondly. 

“That probably could’ve ended with some broken bones if we weren’t shinobi, you know,” Iruka said, chuckling softly.

He felt Naruto laugh quietly against him, and Iruka was struck by how reserved he sounded, compared to his usual, boisterous self. They sat in silence for a moment, Iruka simply stroking Naruto’s hair and rubbing tiny circles into his back, until he felt Naruto completely relax against him, telling him without words how tightly wound up Naruto had been for whatever reason. And when Naruto finally spoke it was into Iruka’s neck, the boy refusing to remove himself from the comfort that Iruka was more than willing to provide.

“A lot of people got hurt. Some died,” Naruto said, his voice small and oddly unreadable.

Furrowing his brow, unused to Naruto being so reticent, Iruka nodded and said, “Yeah...but you saved them. You saved us all.”

Iruka felt Naruto shake his head against him, and the boy continued to sound small but spoke quickly as if he knew Iruka was seconds away from reiterating his point. “No I didn’t—Nagato saved everyone. I just...helped,” Naruto said, his voice getting quieter and quieter with each word.

Despite not knowing who Nagato was, or why, after how Naruto had seen first hand how he’d saved everyone, he was trying to convince Iruka of something different, Iruka didn’t miss a beat and said, “Your version of ‘helping’ saved the whole damn village, Naruto.”

As carefully as he could, Iruka pulled Naruto away from him only enough to have the boy look him in the eye, taking in the pinched and tense way Naruto’s expression formed on his face, and how he would only look as high as Iruka’s chin. Naruto looked almost...ashamed, or at least uncomfortable, and Iruka panicked for a moment before he realized it wasn’t because of anything he’d done, but rather something else.

But what on earth did Naruto have to feel ashamed about?

Before he could ask, Iruka noticed that Naruto’s hitai-ate sat a little askew along his forehead, torn and filthy all along the fabric part, and couldn’t help the little smile that blossomed on his face at the sight. Village hero or not Naruto was still only a kid, through and through, and that made Iruka’s heart feel warm with affection.

He reached behind Naruto, untying the hitai-ate carefully so that Naruto was aware of what he was doing the whole time, and then pulled it off, folded it neatly, and set it on the ground beside them. Then, without warning, Iruka used both of his hands to ruffle the hell out of Naruto’s hair and earned an indignant squawk, leaving it sticking up and a complete mess as Naruto looked at him with wide, surprised eyes.

Eyes that were, most importantly, looking Iruka in the eye at last.

Grinning, Iruka simply said, “There, that’s better.”

He watched as Naruto’s expression did several things at once, none of which conveyed one single emotion Iruka could read and respond to, but the tears that collected along the edges of the boy’s eyes said _something_ important, even if Iruka didn’t know what that was just yet. His hands combed through Naruto’s hair again, but this time the movement was slow, gentle, and it coaxed those tears to fall down Naruto’s scarred, bruised cheeks, and make the boy crumble right before his very eyes. Yet Iruka continued to look calm, his lips forming enough of a smile to show that he wasn’t going to judge Naruto for whatever he was struggling with, and that he was there for him no matter what.

He’d always be there for him no matter what.

Fuck being needed or unwanted. Those words had no right to exist in the tiny world of two that Iruka and Naruto lived in, and Iruka’s heart clenched a little in shame for even entertaining the idea of either of those words.

But, well, it wasn’t as if Naruto would judge him for a moment of weakness either.

And his weaknesses were neither here nor there at that moment—what mattered was Naruto.

Glancing at the hitai-ate on the ground, Iruka’s smile widened a bit, and he said, “Looks like I get to give you a new one, just like when you graduated from being my student to being my hero.” Chuckling softly, he looked back up into Naruto’s watery, startlingly blue eyes (his father’s eyes—the eyes of a hero both inherited and earned) and softly framed the boy’s face with his hands, brushing a few tears away with his thumbs.

“That’s appropriate, don’t you think? Since you’ve graduated again, only this time you’re _everyone’s_ hero.”

Naruto bit his trembling lower lip, though it didn’t stop a hiccuping sob from escaping him, and suddenly Iruka understood. He wasn’t sure why that painful sound made everything click, but it did, and Iruka brought his hands downward until his arms slipped under Naruto’s arms, and he was able to bring the boy in for a hug much like the one they shared earlier, Naruto’s face once again buried against Iruka’s neck. He leaned his head somewhat to the side, gently resting it against Naruto’s, sighing deeply.

“You deserve that praise you were getting up there, Naruto,” Iruka said, his words conjuring another muffled, but profound sob that he felt shake through the boy’s entire frame. “You _do_.”

Iruka’s eyes focused in on something sticking out of Naruto’s messy hair, and he smiled helplessly. Using the hand that had been brushing those unruly strands, Iruka plucked a leaf free from that blond bird’s nest and spun it between his index finger and thumb by the stem.

“Sarutobi-sama once told me that, when he looked at me, he saw the Will of Fire as a living person because of my passion and love for Konoha,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, but Iruka knew Naruto heard every word. “However, if he’d lived long enough to see what you accomplished today, he’d be saying that about you. A lot of people who aren’t here to see what you did today would be saying that about you. And I know they’d be feeling the same thing I’m feeling so deeply it almost hurts.”

Though he was barely put together enough to speak, Naruto pulled away from the hug so that he could look Iruka in the eye again, roughly wiped his face on his torn and battered sleeve, and asked, “What’re you feeling?”

Iruka was tender in his movements as he snatched Naruto’s hand away from trying to (unsuccessfully) wipe his face, placed the leaf in the palm of the boy’s hand and molded Naruto’s fingers to curl around it, then brought that loosely-held fist to rest against Iruka’s chest over his heart. He smiled wide and unabashedly at Naruto, almost brought to tears himself with just how deeply he felt the word he said next.

“Proud. I feel so damn proud of you, Naruto.”

Without knowing that he had said something similar to what Naruto had heard from his father earlier that day, when he’d lost control and Minato’s chakra had stopped the Kyuubi from consuming the boy, Iruka didn’t expect the strong reaction he got in response. Naruto flung himself forward, forcing Iruka back into laying on the ground with an emotional teenager for a blanket, and cried in such a way that Iruka’s whole being ached for Naruto. It sounded like the hurt child Iruka remembered from the early academy days, but this hurt bore a different weight—the immeasurable weight of joy coupled with a deeply-rooted grief that Iruka understood more than he ever wished he did.

Naruto hiccuped ‘thank you’ over and over again into Iruka’s shoulder, his body shaking, and Iruka chose not to insult him by saying that he hadn’t done anything worth thanking. Instead, he simply held on and rubbed circles into the boy’s back, staring up at the sky that seemed far too blue when Naruto’s tears were so thick and his cries so painful to listen to. Eventually he felt Naruto’s body go slack, and soft, little snores whisper into his ear, leaving Iruka grinning so fondly he felt almost embarrassed by his own face.

“Cried himself to sleep, huh? Hero or not, he’ll always be a kid at heart.”

With the weight of a 16-year-old shinobi keeping him pinned to the ground, all Iruka could do was continue to stare up at the sky and wait for whomever was speaking to come into view. And as the speaker was not a man who couldn’t take a hint, Iruka listened as Hatake Kakashi walked over and squatted near Iruka’s head, leaning over so that Iruka could see him properly. Kakashi’s visible eye was curved a bit in a smile, the corner charmingly wrinkled, and while on a normal day Iruka would’ve felt like that look was meant to make fun of him for something, today all he could bring himself to do was smile back.

“He’ll be Hokage one day and still be a kid at heart, mark my words,” he said, and earned a quiet laugh from Kakashi.

“You’re not wrong.” 

They stared at one another for a long, silent moment, Iruka watching the way Kakashi’s silver hair gently swayed in the warm breeze, and though neither of them uttered a single word there were a million of them said between them. None of which had to be spoken aloud—not when, in the end, they were both there, alive, and the person to thank for that was right there alive and well with them. Rather than speak, Kakashi reached for Iruka and his long, calloused fingers brushed several strands of hair out of Iruka’s face, tucking them behind Iruka’s ear, and along the way he pulled something out of Iruka’s hair that he couldn’t see at first. Not until Kakashi brought it into view, spinning a leaf between his fingers the exact same way Iruka had earlier.

“I figured out why Naruto reacted the way he did,” Kakashi said, and Iruka looked at him questioningly.

Although he couldn’t see it beneath the mask he wore, Iruka knew Kakashi was smiling when he looked down at him, continuing a steady rhythm of spinning the leaf back and forth. It would’ve been more distracting if the way the bright sky above them haloed Kakashi’s whole frame wasn’t distracting enough.

“Everyone on the goddamn planet could tell him that he’d done a good thing—that they were proud, and that he was a hero—but there’s only one person in the whole world, that’s alive right now, who could say all that and it would matter. That he _needed_ to hear it from. It’s the same person that was family to him before he knew what family even was, and the only person to ever feel like home to him.” Now Kakashi was full out grinning, Iruka didn’t have to have known Kakashi for years to tell, and he felt his face flush before Kakashi even finished making his point, which only made the rat-bastard’s grin wider under that damned mask.

“You, Iruka-sensei,” he said, letting the leaf go to get carried off by the wind. “He needed to hear it from you.”

Glancing away from Kakashi in the hopes that his blush would go away (it wouldn’t, not for awhile) Iruka’s eyes unfocused as he watched the clouds pass by overhead, concentrating more on Naruto’s weight atop him, and the feeling of the boy’s relaxed breathing under his hands, lifting and lowering Naruto’s back, than anything else. The trust between them was on full display—the trust Naruto had in Iruka to keep him safe after everything that’s happened, and sleep in his arms without a care in the world—and Iruka knew Kakashi was right.

It was humbling, and terrifying to a degree, but Iruka felt blessed in ways he’d never felt before.

“Well,” he said, looking back at Kakashi, “I guess I gotta be careful from now on then.”

“Why’s that?” Kakashi asked, sitting cross-legged on the ground and putting his chin in the palm of a hand, while the other began to gently pet Naruto’s hair.

Iruka smirked and said, “I don’t want him to get a big head. It’s bad for a hero to get cocky.”

And with that, Kakashi’s laughter settled over them like a benevolent mist that hid the horrors of the world beneath it. There was still so much to do, so many repairs to make, and injured to take care of, but for now, here at the base of a hill that felt like the border between reality and a dream, everything was perfect.

When a hero begins, they’ll always need someone to help them continue down that path and be a home for them to return to. And to Naruto, Iruka would always be that person.

Always.

  
  
  
  



End file.
